


A Woman of Reason(s)

by dirgewithoutmusic



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, SHIELD Academy antics, SHIELD falls, mentions of dementia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One late night, in the midst of a prank war between the Operations and Science divisions of SHIELD Academy, Sharon Carter snuck into SciTech, looking to snatch an honored old trophy of theirs for display in some sort of interesting place the next day. </p><p>Sharon got into the trophy room and she almost got out before a sticky substance shot from the floor and the doors barred themselves and a disappointed "tut tut" recording started sounding throughout the room.</p><p>By the time Jemma Simmons, panting and exultant in Marie Curie pajamas, appeared downstairs Sharon was leaning against the wall outside the barred, sticky room, cleaning her fingernails and smirking. </p><p>This was how they met: Jemma set a trap and Sharon got out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Woman of Reason(s)

**Author's Note:**

> A nonny prompted me with "Agent 13/Jemma Simmons" and this is what came out.

When Jemma saw the news that the Triskelion had fallen, her heart froze for a lot of reasons: she was evading HYDRA and trying to figure out if she could trust Trip. The Academy was burning. Jemma was hiding her research to keep it out of the wrong hands. She’d lost contact with Fitz, and were Skye’s stitches holding—?

Sharon was far from the first thing on Jemma’s mind. If Sharon was gone, she was gone. If she wasn’t, then she could take care of herself.

If anyone had been able to get out of that collapsing Triskelion, it would have been Sharon, Jemma was sure. If anyone would have stayed in there, amid the gunfire and the crumbling infrastructure, to save people, it would have been Sharon.

But Jemma could hardly point fingers. She had once jumped out of a plane to save people, after all. 

—

Sharon and Jemma met in the midst of a prank war between the Operations and Science branches of SHIELD Academy. 

Team Fitzsimmons was clearly the best SciTech had to offer, achieving farther and wilder pranks than anyone else. Fitz and Simmons egged each other on over problem sets and new inventions for pranks; their grades did not flag in the least, except for Fitz’s genetics grade. Well, he tried to blame it on the prank war, but Simmons suspected genetics just wasn’t his field. 

Sharon was running most of the Ops pranks herself. Ward had rolled his eyes when she invited him along. Trip dropped in now and then to be her second man, but they kept it quiet. The two Howling Commando legacies, Carter and Triplett, got enough dismissive or suspicious glances to not want to call attention to themselves by flocking together. They both wanted people to see that they got here on their own two feet. Trip (who hadn’t gone by Antoine even as a boy, to anyone but one stubborn aunt) and Sharon still saw each other often, but it was via back windows and library alcoves where they told old inside jokes and helped each other with geography homework. 

Sharon snuck into the SciTech parts of the Academy one late night, looking to snatch an honored old trophy of theirs for display in some sort of interesting place the next day. Sharon got into the trophy room and she  _almost_  got out before a sticky substance shot from the floor and the doors barred themselves and a disappointed  _tut tut_  recording started sounding throughout the room.

By the time Jemma Simmons, panting and exultant in Marie Curie pajamas, appeared downstairs Sharon was leaning against the wall outside the barred, sticky room, cleaning her fingernails and smirking. 

This was how they met: Jemma set a trap and Sharon got out of it.

When Jemma came stammering to a halt, she demanded to know how Sharon got out. Sharon realized the mastermind she’d been chasing for weeks was standing in front of her. “Only if you tell me how you guys managed the cafeteria prank last week.”

The little woman with the lilting accent eyed her, crossing slim arms over the beakers and bunsen burners embroidered over her chest. Finally Jemma said decisively, “I’ll grab Fitz.” 

Ops and Tech favored different Academy-adjacent coffeehouses. Finally they settled on trying the Admin teashop. (After that night, they both agreed it was _far_  inferior to their own two and forever after swapped between Tech and Ops for their coffee dates). 

Sharon thought Fitz and Simmons were an item for a long time— and they were. They were Fitzsimmons and they would live and die together, drowning in metal boxes, screaming at each other through glass barriers and dying for each other’s life, setting up covert phone lines so they could talk when they were apart.

Fitz would always be the other half of Simmons’ bright fizzing mind. What Sharon didn’t realize until weeks into a competitive, interdisciplinary friendship was that he wasn’t the other half of her heart.

That position was, in fact, still up for grabs. Sharon was more than happy to volunteer.

—

Jemma worked on GH.325, the drug that had saved Skye and brought Coulson back to life, because she thought it might save lives. She drank mugs of over-brewed Earl Grey and squinted so hard at pipettes and sequencing results that she could feel the headache forming no matter how much aspirin she took.

There were a lot of reasons she did this, but here was one: maybe the regenerative powers of this serum would save lives, if she could just figure out how it worked, how to replicate it, how to control it.

Maybe it could save not just lives but  _minds_. Maybe it could save Peggy Carter.

Here was another reason: what if Sharon had inherited more from her aunt than her last name and her good aim?

—

Trip had been on assignment with Garret when Sharon had first taken Jemma to a Howling Commandos (&legacies) BBQ.

When Trip finally admitted his legendary grandparentage Coulson gaped but Jemma snorted. “I’ve heard potty training stories about you,” she told him. Skye pestered her for them for weeks. 

—

There were a lot of reasons Jemma Simmons fell in love with Sharon Carter, but here was one: Sharon understood about Fitz; that he’d show up at three a.m. some nights and not leave until he’d managed to solve whatever equation was eating at his brain; that he wasn’t a threat but he  _was_  part of the package; that he required patience and gentle handling and that Jemma was never, as previous partners had suggested, going to grow out of him.

Here was another: She took Jemma out to the shooting ranges and taught her how to hold a gun, how to shoot. Sharon stood close behind her, repositioned her shoulders with warm warm hands that she just slid down to Jemma’s waist once her shoulders were right. Sharon talked with a calm professional voice about aim and recoil and pretended to ignore Jemma’s deep blush.

Here was another: the way Sharon tilted her head and smiled when she was sizing up someone bigger than her.

A last: Sharon never did tell her how she got out of that trophy room with none of Jemma’s Goo2000(TM) on her. 

—

Their paltry six man (and -woman) team was now what was left of SHIELD. 

Melinda May was flying the Bus. The rest of the team was sleeping, hopefully.

More than likely, however, at least half of them were up on anxious watch for trouble, skimming the net or pinging old colleagues, reaching out along the legacies’ network. The ones that weren’t hard at anxious work were probably not sleeping either, just staring at the plane walls and wondering how to put your life back together when the thing you had built your life on had crumbled to smoke.

Jemma wasn’t sleeping either. She settled down in the Bus’s lab and pulled up her notes on GH.325. Peggy was getting worse, the last Jemma had heard from Sharon. Sharon was young and bright and healthy, but every time she forgot where her keys were Jemma’s heart froze.

Fitz had woken from his coma, but he was having trouble even stringing words together. They said he might heal. To some degree.  _Might._

Jemma flexed her fingers and reached for a pipette. In the daylight, she and her team would try to save the world. But these late hours were hers. She would use them to save the other half of the mind, and the other half of her heart.

Here was a reason: they were hers to save.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted here: http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/87161218494/if-you-are-taking-fanfic-prompts-agent-13-jemma


End file.
